


the stars are splashed across the ceiling

by ennaih (aquandrian)



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Happily Ever After, Identity Porn, Jynnic Week, Such Shenanigans, cos I love my Heyer, shamelessly shoving characters into roles cos i can, some smut, yeah you read right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 13:33:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9493667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquandrian/pseuds/ennaih
Summary: Jyn Erso’s parents suggest she marry her father’s very rich very influential friend to save them from poverty. She very much rebels.Written for the Happily Ever After themed day of Jynnic Week.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _Magneto_ by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
> 
> Fyi, a tiger here is not an animal. It's a young boy who assists a gentleman in the riding of a carriage. Don't ask me why.

Her parents are deranged. 

As Jyn stares at them, horrified, her mother hastens to add, “You might consider it, Jyn. You will be very comfortable --”

“You loathe him,” Jyn bursts out. “You want me to marry someone you can’t even have a civil conversation with, Mama? Really?”

“That --” Lyra falters.

Jyn shoots to her feet, feeling very righteous. “Precisely. You’re being absurd, both of you.”

“Jyn,” her father begins in his ever so reasonable ever maddening tone. “You know our situation. Our creditors -- my work -- your mother’s work and mine is important but --”

“It’s vulgar to speak of money,” Jyn says loftily and instantly regrets it. She sounds like one of those asinine aristocrats with their heads so far up their posteriors they don’t see their estates falling to bits around them. She was not brought up like that.

As both her parents frown at her, Jyn sits back down and apologises. “I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry. I know how important the work is, I do. But you can’t ask this of me! It’s intolerable, it makes us no better than those horrible mamas who sell their daughters off in the assembly rooms. Mama,” she pleads, “you can’t want that for me!”

“Jyn, you’re being far too dramatic. Marrying Krennic wouldn’t be the worst thing --”

“Oh really,” Jyn fires back. “You of all people have a nerve saying that to me!”

Lyra flings up her hands and sits back.

“Never mind how your mother feels about Orson.” Her father has taken over. “You haven’t even met him yet. He’s only just returned from -- you know he is my oldest friend --”

Jyn snorts. “Oldest is right,” she mutters. She may not have met this decrepit awful man but she’s seen the miniature in her father’s study. It was a bad painting but he looked disagreeable anyway, white-haired and craggy and sullen.

Galen Erso chooses to ignore this. “-- and think of all the good you can do. Not just for our work but in your own right. With your own money --”

“His money!”

“His connections, then,” says Lyra, leaning forward. Her dark auburn hair gleams in the pale light of their London townhouse. “Think of all the people you’ll meet as a result of being his wife. The people you can influence, Jyn, for your own cause. Being his wife will open so many doors to you, give you so much power and protection than you could ever have if you remain the Honourable Miss Erso for the rest of your life.”

Jyn catches her breath. “That’s cruel.”

But accurate. She gazes at her mother, at the carefully mended gown she wears, red and blue. Unfashionable but her mother never cared for such things, too focused on her science, on the work with Galen.

“You chose love, Mama. You made yourself useful by choosing love with Papa. Won’t you allow me that?”

Her parents have no answer, exchanging rather wretched looks. Feeling very noble indeed, Jyn gets up and walks from the sitting room. That’s the end of that, then.

__________

 

It is not the end of that. The Marchioness Mothma, despite being her mentor, takes up the campaign. Jyn has to endure a half hour long talk over weak tea and stale sandwiches about the virtues of marriage and all the power a woman can wield as a wife in the home as well as in society.

“Never mind that his children and I become his property,” Jyn points out, unable to resist.

“You’re your father’s property now. That is simply the reality of English society.”

“English society can suck balls,” Leia says later when Jyn relates the conversation.

“Leia!” They’re in public but she laughs anyway, glad for her friend. Parasols up, they stroll along the path, pretending not to notice the stylish young men casting them hopeful glances. It’s that time of the day when half of London society takes to St James Park, to be seen and to see and gossip. Jyn knows she looks very pretty in her new pink muslin with the tiny magenta flowers and magenta piping, her bonnet trimmed with pink ribbons. 

“I think you should run away, that’s what I think,” Leia whispers fiercely. 

“To where?” Jyn scowls. “Aunt Mothma won’t --”

“What about Cassian? Where is he stationed at the moment?”

Jyn’s mind races. “I don’t recall but his last letter said -- oh!” She clutches Leia’s arm. “Calais! He’s on holiday there now, he said -- oh, Leia!”

As always, her clever friend thinks two steps ahead. “Dover. You need to get to Dover, maybe tonight. Take the steamship across.”

Jyn grimaces. “The steamship? But they look so awful and noisy, and are they really safe?”

Leia sets her chin. “Would you rather have some horrible old man slobber on top of you? Would you prefer that?”

She has a point. “The steamship it is. I’ll be brave.”

“Of course you will.” Leia hugs her arm, the parasol tilting drunkenly. “If you can venture into the slums of St Giles, you can certainly cross the Channel in a great noisy article.”

“Yes, but you were with me then. What if --”

Leia sighs. “You know I’d come with you if I could but my studies -- my father --”

“Yes, of course.” Jyn hugs her back. “I’ll be all right. Don’t you worry.”

__________

 

In the end, she decides it’ll take too long to write Cassian and wait for a response. Far better to act, and act now. If she waits, she may lose her nerve. If she’s there in Calais, her parents will know her protests aren’t mere dramatics, that she’s entirely in earnest. This is her life, she will not become just another victim of English hypocrisy. And Cassian will have to help her if she’s right before him.

Kaytoo is horrified into silence by the plan. But of course that only lasts a few moments. “Of course you must go. What shall I pack for you? I know. Leave it to me.”

So come that evening, Jyn is in a coach rattling its way toward the mists of Dover. There’s only one other passenger, a monk of some sort dozing with his head back against the seat. She huddles into her corner, reticule held tight, convinced that she’s too terrified to sleep. All she wants is to be invisible until she gets to Calais and Cassian, grateful that her maid chose to dress her in dark blues for this desperate bid for freedom.

The next thing she knows, the coach jolts to a stop in a tumult of noise and light. Jyn pushes her hair out of her eyes, blinking against the door thrown open. It’s the courtyard of a posting inn, so much chatter and stamping of horses and rough yells as luggage is unloaded from the mailcoaches around. Jyn follows the monk out, helped down by the coachman who says he’ll bring her trunk in for her. “Thank you so much,” she says with fervour, pulling her hooded cape tighter around her against the damp air. If she’s a little over-familiar in her relief, the coachman doesn’t bat a lid, merely nods genially at her.

Jyn makes her way across the courtyard, exhilarated by all the activity. It’s so different to the bustle of Burlington Arcade or the threatening chaos of St Giles. This is an industrious energy, the lamps burning away the mists. And here the different classes of English society brush up against each other, roughly courteous. She watches as the coachmen and mailmen call across to each other, as they help the ladies and gentlemen in their rumpled travelling clothes down. Some rake in a high-sprung completely unsuitable carriage tears into the yard, his tiger leaping off to cries of outrage and yet more of welcome. Reminded of her need for anonymity, Jyn attaches herself to a noisy family talking in very loud Yorkshire accents as they hurry into the warmth of the posting inn.

The publican is deeply suspicious of a young woman on her own but agrees to give her a room for the night. She doesn’t dare ask for a private parlour, maybe that would call too much attention to herself. Better to hide in plain sight, in the crowds. She tells him she’ll take a bit of supper in the communal area.

In the warmth of dark glossy wood and flickering murky paintings, Jyn loosens her cape and puts back her hood as she sits some distance from the roaring fireplace. The tired families bicker around her, eating and complaining. A girl not much older than her shrinks in a chair, clutching her reticule, looking very scared and defiant. Jyn looks at the unsuitably thin gown -- clearly no Kaytoo for a maid there -- and considers whether to approach her but then decides against it. Better to hide. There are a couple of whiskered men arguing ferociously about the wisdom of exiling a man to Elba and how easily support can be drummed back up. She’s not sure if that’s treasonous talk, listening as her food arrives and she gobbles up as much as she can, suddenly ravenous.

“Be damned to you, Malbus, your wits are disordered!”

The big bearded man who must be an ex-soldier laughs, slamming his tankard down. “The truth is hard to hear, friend!”

Beyond them, Jyn spots the monk watching from a shadowed corner. The firelight plays on his expression, thoughtful as he regards the man called Malbus.

“It’s treason, is what it is,” grumbles the other man, dark and fine with neatly trimmed beard and hair queued back. “You’ll be in --”

A man appears like a vision in the entrance to the public room. A gentleman in a white caped greatcoat that swirls with ridiculous extravagance around him as he pauses, removing the black topper from his head, and looks swiftly around at the people gaping back at him. Jyn stares too. He may be the most elegant creature she’s seen in and away from Almack’s and St James’ Park. Silver hair, unpowdered, unwigged, and perfectly coiffed even at this hour of night. The publican appears behind him, anxious and fawning like every cliché. The gentleman relinquishes the greatcoat and hat, unsmiling in his acknowledgement. His dress coat below is immaculate white, perfectly cut away around his body, with red and blue embroidery by the left lapel. Snowy white cravat with what has to be a diamond pin, and gleaming white waistcoat with intricate embroidery. Black sleek trousers, black top boots and, startlingly, black gloves that he tugs off as the publican shows him towards a solitary table by the fireplace.

Jyn watches as the gentleman murmurs a brief word and is shown to a table further back from the blast of heat. The conversations resume, she returns to her meal. She should retire to bed, tomorrow may be a very long day. But she’s too jittery with nerves and doesn’t want to be alone with her chaotic thoughts, all her self-doubt.

___________

 

So she lingers on in the public room, sipping at the elder wine as she eavesdrops on the talk around her. The young girl flees first, the families go up next, then the smaller groups, yawning and muttering. Eventually, it’s just her, the monk, the political debaters now dozing over their port, and the gentleman in white. The crackling of the fire is so soothing, flickers on the mullioned windowpanes, distorting the night outside. Out there is the Channel, across the waters is France and a world of uncertain peril. Jyn shivers suddenly in her seat, aware that she’s so very far from home and that she may never go back.

“I realise we haven’t been introduced. But,” says the smooth silver gentleman from his table a few feet away, “I hope you will not be offended when I note that you’re most welcome to move closer to the fire if you like.” As Jyn stares at him, trying to decide whether to be alarmed or outraged, he smiles briefly, almost a wince really. “I beg your pardon, that was too forward. My apologies.”

It’s the wince that makes up her mind. Because there wasn’t an ounce of artfulness about it. He doesn’t seem like some rake practising his seduction techniques on her, faking a conscience to get what he wants. She doesn’t say anything but she nods, unsmiling, and toys with the last of bread on her smeared plate.

“What?” The bearded Malbus startles out of his doze. “Ho there! Bodhi Rook, my friend! Another port!”

Bodhi Rook stirs himself. “Absolutely not,” he manages. “I’m for bed.”

Malbus harrumphs. Jyn sees the moment he catches sight of the watching monk. “Ho there, friend. Will you join me? As Bodhi Rook here abandons me like the milksop he is.”

“Milksop yourself,” Rook says, pushing to his feet. “Don’t drink with this gentleman, sir. He’ll ruin you with his bluster and rhetoric.”

“Rhetoric yourself!” 

The two ex-soldiers leave. The monk seems to slump back a little into the shadows. Grateful for his presence, Jyn glances across to the silver gentleman. He’s finished his meal, now bending his head to light a slim cheroot.

“Do you travel to Calais, sir?”

She gets a quick sharp look. In the firelight, his eyes are a very dark beautiful blue. Jyn waits, curiously without fear of judgement.

He leans back in his chair, intelligent and elegant. “No, rather the reverse. I've just come from there.” He smiles slightly. “It’s been years since I set foot on English soil.”

“This happy hearth,” she offers. And his smile broadens, appreciative of her wit rather than her face or figure. She can tell.

“Quite. Quite. You journey to Calais, then? Tomorrow morning?”

Jyn nods, suddenly anxious. He seems to notice, his eyes narrowing a little. But he’s gracious enough not to say, instead toys with the small glass of brandy before him. “Calais was very fine when I left it. You have nothing to fear.” 

“Oh, I’m glad,” she replies with genuine feeling. “I hear that sometimes the winds -- I hope tomorrow’s crossing will not be delayed.”

He smiles at her, something lovely and honest about his features. “The weather promises to be clement. You’ll be all right. I remember,” he adds without pause, “the worst crossing I ever had was when I was, oh, about twelve. Atrocious, gave me nightmares for weeks.”

“Here?”

“Oh no! No, no,” he hastens to reassure her. “From the Isle of Mull to Erraid. Do you know it?”

“No,” she says, charmed by the idea of this charismatic man as an anxious twelve year old. “What took you there?”

“Lighthouses. My father’s great passion. They were quarrying the stone on Erraid and constructing the lighthouses nearby.” He grins at her, boyish. “My father swept me along, insisted I must witness it.”

“And the crossing?”

He tells her about the roaring waves, the terror and the excitement, all the while reminding her that the crossing to Calais will be tranquil in comparison. They talk for a while in the firelight, Jyn comforted by the sound of his voice, fascinated by his expressive face. She tells him about her work in the slums, about her Aunt Mothma and Leia, how that sense of purpose drives her life, gives her so much more to live for beyond the fripperies of the _bon ton_. He is surprised at first, but then refreshingly respectful and not at all patronising. She likes that so much, it makes her tell him more, about the people she’s encountered, the plans she has for the future.

And then she remembers. Where she is, what she’s doing that may threaten all of that good work.

He notices again. “What is it,” he asks gently. “Calais?”

“Yes.” She ducks her head, not wanting him to see that she’s near tears.

“There’s no reason you can’t do the same there, you know.” The same gentle tone. It soothes her, makes her smile a little at her own foolishness. 

“Yes, of course.” She rubs at her eyes. “You’re quite right. Of course you are.”

His voice is very careful now. “Will you tell me why it is you need to go there? I assure you I can keep a confidence.”

Jyn laughs unsteadily. “Oh, it’s such a silly old tale. Hackneyed, really.”

“Ah. An escape?”

“Yes. My parents, wonderful as they are, as much as I love them -- my parents have asked the unacceptable, the intolerable of me.”

“Which would be?”

She looks at him directly, unafraid. “They want me to marry my father’s oldest friend. Who is, mind you, extremely old and very unpleasant. And I have absolutely no intention of doing any such thing.”

His smile curves his mouth long and wide with approval, even pride. “An excellent conviction. I commend you.”

She laughs. “Do you? My parents would have me choose reason over passion. That I have too much passion, too great a predilection for dramatics.”

“Passion has its uses,” he says. It occurs to her that any other man -- the rake in the high spung carriage, for instance -- would have said that with enough innuendo to make her want to slap him. But this man says it calmly and doesn’t even look at her when he does.

“On the other hand,” he adds, regarding the burning tip of his cheroot, “your time in St Giles would have demonstrated just how perilous that can be. Don’t you think?”

She likes his face so much, the way he looks at her with such openness. “I know,” she admits. “But why must it be one or the other? Why can’t I have passion as well as reason? It’s awfully unfair, and it seems -- sometimes it seems like us women are the ones who are forced to choose between that, far more than your race.”

He laughs, eyes bright. “Oh, hardly. No, no. My race is subject to various pressures of our own kind.”

“Like what,” she asks, unthreatened and curious.

“Like the pressure to marry and produce heirs. Which,” he adds as she opens her mouth to interrupt, “I grant you is a burden your race bears too.”

She huffs with satisfaction. “And lord help you if you’re a woman who can’t produce children. Or produces the wrong sort. Girls and not boys.”

The corner of his mouth tilts up. “Your opinion then is that blame lies entirely with the woman?”

She shrugs, slightly embarrassed now to be talking of such intimate things. “I don’t know. I certainly don’t hear husbands being slighted in quite the same way when their wives produce only girls.”

“Mm. Yes, I agree. Still, it does something to a man.”

“Oh, really,” Jyn drawls, rolling her eyes before she can help it.

Unoffended, he laughs. “No sympathy, then?”

“Certainly not,” she replies. “I don’t feel sorry for men. Have you read Wollstonecraft? I beg your pardon, do you care for reading?”

He grins and matches her formal tone. “I do, yes. And I have, yes. A great influence on you, I take it?”

“She had a terrible life, you know. So used and abused by men, and her own struggle between passion and intellect. Because of her and her writings, I am convinced that marriage cannot be anything but a vile institution of male tyranny and female servitude. Convinced!”

He regards her for a few moments, silver and gold in the firelight. “I was under the impression her marriage to Godwin was a happy one. If brief.”

Jyn knows he’s right, nodding. “Yes. But she still died as a result of it, didn’t she? Because of the childbed. And I wonder now about that child, about both her daughters. How it must be for them, to grow up without her, to know --” She sighs. “To know they may well suffer the same fate. That,” she sends him a sharp look, “is our lot in this life, and it’s a rotten one.”

Now he nods slowly. And Jyn realises with a shock. 

“Oh my goodness.” She stares at him, aghast. “I don’t -- I haven’t -- oh, we haven’t been --” Damn it all. Jyn reaches forward and puts out her hand to him. “How do you do? My name is Jyn Erso.”

He goes very still, his eyes wide and so pretty. And she can see that his mind works very fast behind those eyes. He stares at her for several long seconds, her outstretched hand ignored. Just as she begins to frown at him, fearing that maybe she is recognised and about to be given up to her parents, he clasps her fingers lightly in his. Silently shocked by bare skin, that they’ve both forgotten their gloves, Jyn watches him say, “Lexrul.”

He says it as one word, not two. It’s not a name she’s familiar with, and quietly she resolves to ask the publican later. As they smile tentatively at each other, hands slipping free, there is the sound of a coach pulling up outside. Jyn wonders at the time, it must be very late now. 

Some huge man with a wheezy voice storms past the entrance of the communal area, screaming for the publican. He’s accompanied by a whole lot of anxious men, all peering up the stairs.

“Where is my daughter,” the man shrieks and clomps up the stairs. Jyn goes rigid. Sure enough, there’s a lot of screaming and wailing as the father drags the young girl out of her room and down the stairs, as other people come grumbling out of their rooms. The racket moves outside. Jyn thinks fast, her heart pounding wild. Her father would never -- her mother absolutely would. She’d be ruined. Worse than that, she’d be dragged back to London and locked up, put under constant surveillance, like some ravening creature not to be trusted in public. She wouldn’t be able to do her work, see her friends. They would do exactly what that man just did.

Unless.

She turns to the curious man beside her. “Will you do something for me?”

Lexrul raises his brows. “Almost certainly.”

“Will you marry me?”

He freezes but this time recovers much faster. “What happened to the vile institution of male tyranny and --”

“Oh, it doesn’t have to be real.” The words tumble out, feverish with desperation. “All I need is the paper, a marriage licence to show my parents. That it’s done, that I cannot be taken back to their home. My Aunt Mothma says a married woman is her husband’s property, not her father’s. I cannot afford to be my father’s property anymore.”

Now his eyes spark with a sort of devilry. “But you’d rather be my property?”

“I wouldn’t --” She stifles the heat that suddenly curls through her flesh. “Don’t be absurd. You won’t see me again after tonight. If you can -- you must have connections here in Dover. Could you arrange a parson? Obtain a licence tonight?”

He stares at her, his mouth curled with a sort of ironic appreciation. “I might, yes. So am I to understand you require just the paper? Not the ceremony?”

“Yes, that’s right. Is that possible, do you think?” But already the visual is stealing into her mind. Standing up before a parson next to this man in his elegant white coat, his hand over hers. She glances down and notices firstly that his hands are huge, and secondly, that he wears a bronze signet ring on his little finger.

“Probably,” he admits. “We might to have to launch an attack on the parsonage. Are you willing,” he asks, mischievous. It’s exactly the right thing to say, sparking her own sense of fun despite the horrific situation.

“Yes, why not?”

___________

 

When Lexrul goes outside to arrange for his carriage, Jyn goes in search of the publican. The man is herding people back up the stairs, doing a very bad job of hiding his irritation.

“I beg your pardon,” she ventures. “I wonder if I might --”

“Yes, what is it?”

She blinks at him, shocked at such rudeness, and the publican modifies his expression. “I am sorry, miss. You wanted something?”

“Yes, I wonder if you might tell me -- the gentleman in the white coat who --”

“The viscount.”

Jyn feels herself go a little pale. Of course she knew he’d be a peer but to hear it said. “Er. Lexrul, he said?”

“Yes,” the publican says with exaggerated slowness as if she’s very stupid. “The second Viscount Trax of Lexrul.”

“The stars,” says a voice to one side. 

“What?” She turns, thinking about the title. As the publican grumbles off into the back of the inn, Jyn realises it’s the monk who spoke. He stands in the entrance of the public room, looking up to the worn beams. 

“The stars,” he says slowly, “are splashed … and splattered … across the ceiling.”

Jyn frowns at the dark wood above their heads, then at him. What on earth? Is he some sort of --

But then Lexrul appears at the inn doorway, holding a black gloved hand out to her. Jyn takes it, pulling her cape closed against the cold night air of the courtyard. “It’s not far, the parsonage,” he tells her, helping her into the sleek black carriage. She barely has time to notice the subtle coat of arms on the side, black on black. “We’ll be there in no time.”

“Will he be very cross,” she asks, jolting back into the seat as the carriage moves forward. “If we arrive so late like this?”

Lexrul grins at her in the changing shadow and light from the window. “He’s a school friend. There’ll be some grumbling but he’ll probably move past that soon enough. Just leave it to me.”

“All right,” she murmurs, vaguely astonished at her own willingness to let him take over for now. Well, it’s just for tonight. Tomorrow morning she’ll be away. And in a way … She stares at him as he bends his head, arranging the folds of his greatcoat with a sort of fussiness. This is what Aunt Mothma meant, isn’t it? Using a man’s influence for her own agenda.

A husband, her mind whispers treacherously. Her husband.

“How old are you,” she blurts out. And is then mortified. “I’m so sorry. I don’t -- I didn’t mean to be --”

“Forty-seven,” he says, a certain gleam in his eyes. “Is that extremely old and very unpleasant?”

Jyn is absolutely blushing now. “Hardly,” she manages to say. “You’re not unpleasant at all. Or old.”

He inclines his head, his hair so perfectly arranged even now. “I’m most obliged to you.”

She laughs and then laughs even harder as he grins at her, united in the same devilry.

“And you,” he asks with that lovely ironic tone. “How horrifically young are you?”

She bristles. “Two and twenty. That’s not horrific at all.”

He pretends to shudder. “Maybe not from your perspective.”

“What were you like when you were my age?”

They talk the short trip to the parsonage about his formative years. She gets the impression he was quite a volatile young man, forced to learn restraint and a certain aloofness to protect himself. “Passion,” she murmurs as they alight from the carriage, and he gives her that clever appreciative grin. Her hand tucked into the crook of his elbow, they make their way through the gloom and dew of the parsonage garden to the front door where he takes a breath and then hammers the knocker. “Tarkin! Wake up, you blithering fool, I have need of your benighted services! Tarkin!”

It takes a minute of such bellowing and hammering, Jyn stifling her giggles, before the door is flung open. An irate man with piercing blue eyes, hastily securing a banyan around him, glares out at them. “What the bloody hell are you on about --”

“Excellent,” Lexrul interrupts loudly, taking the man’s hand and practically shoving him backwards. “Come on, old boy, I’ll explain it to you. Where’s the brandy?”

Jyn slips into the house as the two men disappear into what must be a study, the door shutting heavy behind them. It’s warm and a little too dark inside so she fumbles to a lamp and manages to light it.

When the great clock in the hall strikes the half past tone and she’s dozing off in the chair by the door, they emerge from the study. “Miss Erso,” says Tarkin, all grace and courtesy now, much more like a parson ought to be. “I would be most honoured to help you in this unfortunate situation.”

Behind him, Lexrul nods with satisfaction. 

“Thank you so much --”

“But,” Tarkin adds firmly. “I cannot in good conscience give you such a licence.”

Lexrul’s smile snaps off. “What?”

“What,” Jyn says.

“Please understand.” Tarkin places his hands on the lapels of his banyan, brimming with self-importance. “I am a man of God and I am bound by His laws as well as the laws of this great country, and I cannot in good --”

“What the hell are you playing at,” snarls Lexrul. “We’ve discussed this --”

Tarkin raises one hand, entirely too pompous. “No licence may be issued where there is no intention of a marriage taking place. That amounts to fraud in the eyes of all laws, earthly and divine. We are to respect the sanctity of this great institution --”

“I’m going to belt you in a second,” Lexrul says, starting to take off his greatcoat.

“Wait.” Jyn puts her hand on his sleeve. Addressing herself to Tarkin, she asks, “Does that mean that you’ll give us the licence only if you perform the ceremony?”

“That is the office I am invested with. Yes. Oh, put your poxy coat back on, Lexrul. You couldn’t go two rounds with me back at Eton, and you certainly --”

“Please,” Jyn puts her other hand on Tarkin’s arm, looking from one man to the other. “Please, would you do this for me? May we have the ceremony?”

“Of course, my dear.” The parson beams at her, avuncular and easily won over now he's got his way. 

Lexrul’s eyes are stormy. She moves closer to him, willing Tarkin to give them some privacy. Sure enough, he clears his throat and steps away, pretending to examine the clock.

“Please,” she whispers to Lexrul, his warmth and scent coming around her. “I know this isn’t what we wanted, but please. I won’t hold you to it, you know that. Please trust me.”

He looks at her eyes, the shapes of her face for a few long seconds. He smells like dew and like blackberries and bay somehow. And this close, Jyn realises his face is freckled all over, like a thousand delicate constellations on his pale skin. It takes her a while to realise she’s staring at his mouth, and then she’s not actually that shocked by her own thoughts.

“Well,” Lexrul says eventually. “It’ll be a lark. Come along.”

___________

 

So she marries him. The Honourable Miss Jyn Erso, recently fled from her parents’ home in Half Moon Street, marries a man she’s only met a few hours ago in a Dover posting inn, a man who is apparently the second Viscount Trax of Lexrul.

The bride wears a pelisse of worsted fabric, a slightly spattered walking gown, and a shabby travelling cape, all in shades of darkening blue. Her hair is entirely without ornament, more bedraggled than fashionable. The groom is persuaded to shed his caped greatcoat for the ceremony, clad in sleek white and black, and slides a bronze signet ring onto his new bride’s finger.

They don’t speak on the carriage ride back to the inn, the signed and dated marriage licence clutched in Jyn’s clammy hand. She has it now, that and a ring too. Both things to brandish in her parents’ faces, that she cannot be sold off now to some horrible old man because she’s in charge of her own life, free to make her own horrific mistakes.

Only this doesn’t feel like a mistake. This, she realises as she climbs the stairs to her room, this feels like possibility. New and reckless and wonderful.

Lexrul had said he’d like to see her off at the steamship in a few hours. She’d agreed, her mind racing around other things. A few hours. 

Now she sits on the lumpy bed and smooths out the licence. No, it’s a certificate now, isn’t it? With the parson’s signature and hers and his. Lexrul, written clear and precise. No mistake about it. 

It’s done.

Only it isn’t, is it?

Her parents could have it annulled. 

Jyn’s heart lurches, and then she lurches to her feet. That’s it, that was the loophole she hadn’t considered. Stupid, stupid, to not think that far ahead. Of course they would have it annulled. A thousand hasty marriages have been undone like that, and the girls shamed one way or the other. She has to, she has to --

The thought makes her blush. Violently. More than that, it makes her go hot in all the private places she’s not supposed to know about.

It isn’t dawn yet but it will be soon. In a few hours, she’ll be on a boat to Calais, still vulnerable to being stolen out of her own life. 

Jyn darts to the basin and pitcher ready for her. A quick and thorough wash as best she can, her heart hammering in her chest, and she slips out to tap on his room door. 

“Enter.”

His eyes are that dark blue again in the candlelight, minutely startled at first and then very ironic. He knows exactly why she’s here.

“May I help you, Miss Erso?” He grins. “I beg your pardon. Lady Trax.” He’s in shirtsleeves and waistcoat, all gleaming and slightly rumpled white, his throat bare as he undoes his cuffs. “How may I be of service?”

She blushes very hard and says, “I want you to -- er, I need -- I cannot be a virgin tomorrow morning.”

She’s succeeded in shocking him, if only for a moment, if only by the words chosen.

“And why,” he says delicately, “would you need me for that?”

She frowns at him, confused. “Well, how else?”

Now he bites his lip. “There are ways of making it seem that way, you know.” His eyes glint in the warm dimness. “A cut finger, drop of blood on a sheet. You don’t actually have to --”

“I understand,” Jyn interrupts, retreating to the door. Her pride stings far more than she cares to admit.

“Oh, I’m not saying no,” he says, his voice silken with promise, eyes hot on her. “I just want you to understand that this is not --”

“I understand.” She steps forward, knowing she’s wide-eyed and soft-lipped, using every bit of allure she can manage.

Those few hours are everything she never knew she wanted. At first, he seems reluctant to do much more than move her skirts out of the way, touching his fingers to the soft fabric of her underclothes. But then she clutches at him and kisses him back, bolder and sweeter, and he seems to lose his mind a little. It’s so much better out of their clothes, when they’re skin to skin, gazing at each other in the candlelight, breathless with discovery. When she urges him to her mouth and he lifts her legs around his hips, so hot and male and all hers to have as her husband for now. The signet ring weighs heavy and secure on her hand, a little too big for her slender finger but she doesn’t care, clenches it hard in her fist. He lets her touch him, shows her to grasp and stroke his cock -- she learns that word -- and she watches him gasp and react to her touch.

It’s a power she’s never known, a power she instantly claims and seeks to explore, using her hands on him and then her mouth until he shakes and pushes her from him. Only to spread her legs and show her exactly how he undoes her with his mouth. She should be a lot more shocked than she is. But the pleasure swamps her with such intensity, with such abandon that she ceases to care about anything but the feel of his tongue, the skill of his mouth, and how very much she wants him to ease the voracious ache inside her.

It hurts a bit when he puts his cock into her, and then it hurts a lot because he feels so big and invasive. But he kisses her through it, strokes and whispers to her, and then she’s wanting more, more of everything. The candle gutters out, plunging the room into darkness as she gasps and arches tight against him, eyes squeezed shut as her body seizes in unbearable sweetness. She clings to him, overwhelmed by the heat of his breath and the sudden withdrawal of his body from hers, the soft groan and shudder as he spends himself on her thigh. Her hands on the smooth skin of his back, the weight of him on her, Jyn opens her eyes slowly to see silver light glimmering from somewhere on the ceiling. Maybe it’s water, maybe it’s the ocean in some strange trick of reflection.

She drifts off to sleep in his arms, dimly aware that he’s dabbing at her wet thigh with a fold of the sheet. She doesn’t care, too content in body and soul. 

He wakes her just before dawn and makes love to her again. She’s trying not to think about the fact that she’ll never see him again, maybe that is a source of regret. The ceiling ripples with silver light, and she looks down from there to his eyes so dark and expressive. This means something to him, she understand that without a word said. So they kiss deep and long, and make love deep and slow in the bed warm from their bare skin. She’s moaning now, because the way he moves against her, inside her, is so smooth and beautiful, rippling silver pleasure through her all hot and perfect. Afterwards, she clutches him to her, bronze amid the silver hair against her breast, glimmering in the pale dawn light. 

____________

 

They don’t say goodbye. He takes her to the wharf. It’s only when she sees the other passengers boarding with their servants and companions that she realises and turns to him. 

“Don’t you have a valet?”

It’s a banal question but he seems to understand. His smile gentle, he says, “He went on ahead before me. Too much to make ready.”

“In London,” she asks, a stab to her heart.

He nods, his mouth compressing. Here in the morning, he doesn’t look quite as immaculate as when they first met. She smooths her fingers against the fabric of his coat that’s slightly creased, looks at how his hair flops across his brow. Why does he seem so dear to her now? The sight of him hurts far too much.

“I want you to remember something,” he says, very serious. “Will you do that for me?”

Jyn smiles a little. “Maybe. What is it?”

“Grosvenor Square. You know my title, that’s my -- if you ever need anything --” He touches her gloved hand. “You’ll contact me if you need anything. Remember.”

The words seem to sink in her chest, warm and secret. “I will. I’ll remember. Thank you. For everything.”

____________

 

Two days later, her parents find her in Calais, alone in a boarding house because Cassian is gallivanting somewhere across the French countryside. Lyra is spitting furious, Galen so relieved to see his daughter that he picks her up off her feet in a hug before remembering to be angry. They both very nearly explode when she tells them about the marriage and thrusts the certificate at them. 

“And you needn’t try for an annulment because it’s already --” she falters in the face of her parents’ ominous silence. “Matters have proceeded,” she mumbles.

As Galen stares at her with complete horror, her mother glares down at the marriage certificate and goes a little pale. In silence, she passes it to Galen, her hand on his arm. Jyn watches as with a great effort of calm, her mother says, “Jyn, this person you’ve -- where is he? Are we to meet him?”

“No.” She’s already decided this, to be perfectly honourable and never call on him. Not unless things were so very dire she couldn’t handle them on her own. “I don’t see why you should.”

“Well, I don’t believe it,” Galen declares. “I don’t believe this certificate is real, either. No,” he raises his voice as Jyn waves the signet ring at him, “you’ll return to London with us and you will stay there until you can produce this, this, this man! This charlatan!”

“He is not --” she chokes off with indignation.

Her parents have their way. She’s run out of money, can’t escape them, doesn’t speak the language, has no one to turn to. They whisk her back to London before Cassian can return. And truth be told, she’s not sure now whether she wants him to come rescue her, ever. 

Within a few days, she’s back in Half Moon Street, pacing the confines of her bedroom. There has to be a way, some way. They still allow her to see her friends. She could contact Leia, suggest that this time they run away together. Somewhere further than France, somewhere. 

When she doesn’t budge on summoning her supposed husband, her parents go right back to cajoling her to meet the old man, that it’s not too late to salvage the whole mess even though all of polite society (and some of St Giles) knows by now that Jyn Erso ran away and spent a whole night out of home.

Then the idea drops into her head, so perfect and fiendish she stops and laughs.

“You’re right,” she tells her parents. “I made it all up. None of that happened. I spent the night scared and alone in that room at the inn. And you’re right. I should meet him.”

“Why,” her mother says guardedly. 

“I want to explain why I can’t marry him,” she says with the proper amount of shame. “I owe him that much, surely.”

Galen’s mouth twitches. “You can’t tell him anything about running away.” 

“No, of course not. I will behave very correctly, Papa.” 

She has absolutely no intention of doing any such thing. What she’s going to do is shock the old man with every lurid detail of that night. Every detail.

The morning of his visit, Jyn dresses in her most sober and expensive of morning gowns, dark green with tiny pale gold bows down the front. Kaytoo has put her hair up in an artfully twisted configuration devised just a few hours ago. Her father smiles when he sees her gown. He’s always maintained that it brings out the stardust in her eyes. Jyn kisses her father's cheek as she sweeps past him into the parlour to wait with Lyra.

Tea and little cakes, the pale London sunshine silvering their not yet threadbare furnishings. The doorknocker sounds. Her father meets his old friend in the hall, talking bright and happy as they come into the parlour. Jyn is keenly aware of her mother watching her every move and expression.

“Jyn,” her father says, entirely too cheerful. “My old friend, Orson Krennic.”

The gentleman bows with perfect precision. Silver hair, white coat, and watchful blue grey eyes. “Miss Erso.”

She may throw up. She wishes she could faint dead away like a proper London debutante.

“What -- what --” She turns on her parents, incandescent with fury and humiliation. “You knew! All this time you knew, and you said nothing! How dare you!”

“Jyn,” her father begins, hands out. “It wasn’t like that -- we didn’t -- we thought --”

“Might I suggest something,” her husband interrupts, his voice smooth.

“You most certainly may not,” Jyn spits. “You vile horrible person! You, you -- and then you -- and then I -- oh my god,” she moans and sits down, face in her hands.

In the awful silence, her parents leave the room. And Lexrul -- Krennic -- her husband takes the chair near her. Doesn’t touch her but leans forward enough that his familiar aching scent comes swirling around her.

“Jyn,” he says for the first time since they lay together in that bed. “You’re quite right. What I did, keeping my name from you, was cruel. And unnecessary --”

But she’s understanding why already. “Because I hated you,” she mumbles, dropping her hands to stare at the fine black material of his trousers. “Because if you told me your name, I would have left immediately and never spoken to you.”

“Yes. And you see, I very much --” He takes in a breath. “By then, you see, we had talked enough that I liked you very much. Very much. I wanted to help you. And I didn’t --”

“I understand," she says quietly, her mind racing.

But he persists. “I want you to know I was never going to -- you wanted your independence and I was never going to interfere with that. The only reason I came here today was because you asked.”

She raises her eyes to his face now, a little overwhelmed by his sincerity, by the intense warmth of his voice, and now the loveliness of those eyes. The thousand freckles that remind her of stars, of that moment.

“I beg your pardon, sir.” She holds out her hand to him. “It’s Lady Trax, if you please.”

____________

 

A scant two months later, Orson Krennic, second Viscount Trax of Lexrul, marries the Honourable Miss Jyn Erso, daughter of his oldest friend. The wedding is held on his estate, obscenely large and wasteful, as is expected of the viscount. Everyone agrees that the young bride seems as besotted with her elegant groom as he is with her. He wears pristine black and white as he always does, only each texture is subtly much more expensive than ever. The bride wears unfashionable ivory white, dripping with lace and pearls, verging on the tasteless. Everyone agrees she always was a little eccentric like that.

The newlywed couple disappear halfway through the festivities. The bride’s parents profess cheerful ignorance. The Marchioness Mothma snaps her fan open and pretends not to have heard the question. Leia Organa is puzzled at first, goes searching and then is seen darting out of the conservatory, scarlet-faced. Shortly after, she manages to overturn a very large sculpture at the opposite end of the grounds. It makes for a ghastly mess and forever marks her as a clumsy brutish girl in addition to all her other far too clever far too fiery shortcomings.

The Viscount and Lady Trax have a long and extremely fertile marriage. Their eldest child, a daughter, does appear suspiciously early but no one mentions this in polite society. Lady Trax embroils herself in several political scandals as the years go on, mostly around the unpalatable issue of suffrage. The viscount seems perfectly amused by this, possibly even encouraging of such shenanigans. The few times she chains herself to things and gets herself arrested are the few occasions he loses his temper. Peace is usually restored after half an hour of intense yelling and then several hours of intense silence.

Lady Trax still maintains that marriage is a vile institution of male tyranny and female servitude. When her children are old enough to point out this inconsistency, she says, “Well, of course, my darlings, that doesn’t apply to your father and I.”

“Why not,” pipes up her youngest and most impertinent son.

“Because ours is the best kind of marriage, one that unites passion and reason in both of us.”

The children turn to look at their father, dubious of this wisdom. “Why, Papa,” asks the middle cleverest daughter.

“Because,” the viscount drawls, “your mother says so.”

**Author's Note:**

> I enjoyed writing that way too much. And it's been a while since my obsession with Regency romance as well as Georgette Heyer so I really couldn't put as much cant into this as I wanted. Which is prolly a good thing cos if I did, it'd probably be totally unreadable to anyone but us rabid Heyer lovers. But yes, I stole several details from her books because I could. 
> 
> "I don't feel sorry for men" is totally a Gillian Anderson quote. I also totally stole Krennic's black on black crest of arms from Terry Pratchett. Couldn't resist nicking the Isle of Mull storm from the Archers film I Know Where I'm Going. And I would apologise for making Tarkin a parson but I'm so not sorry. 
> 
> I like to think that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship (hurhur) for Baze and Chirrut.
> 
> Mary Wollstonecraft deserved so much better. "A legion of Wollstonecrafts!"


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